Lost in Despair
by VanityWantsYou
Summary: I met him last summer... and after two months, I lost him. [Based off of the anime AIR]


**Disclaimer: I don't own Naruto.**

**I think this oneshot is crap too, but hey, crap is what I produce when I'm extremely exhausted and tryin' to keep up with school work. I hope you enjoy this, though, since it's a short little story.**

**This is based off of the anime called AIR.**

I met him late last summer.

He was standing on the cement wall that kept the ocean from spilling over into the crowded city, his golden hair flying everywhere. He had just stood there, arms wide open, as if embracing the warmth of the setting sun. His eyes had been closed, a contented smile on his childish face, waves crashing into the sea wall, soaking his bare feet.

I'd never seen anyone like him during my years of traveling, especially someone with such bright hair and tanned skin. Moving forward, I had stepped close to the boy, looking out over the expanse of ocean, as well. The evening's breeze had been just right, cooling my skin that had been burned from the hot rays of the sun earlier.

"I've been waiting for you," a young voice had spoken above me.

Tilting my head back, I had, for the first time, seen crystal blue eyes that were so brilliant they rivaled the clearest of skies. His tone was nothing but cheerful, his heels twisting on the rough wall as he'd bent down. Holding out his hand, he'd smiled and wiggled his fingers.

"Want to join me? The sun's almost down."

I don't know why I had let him pull me up with him, but I never regretted it. If I hadn't laid my hand in his, then I wouldn't have been where I was now.

By his side.

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Naruto bowed to the florist, a huge smile plastered on his young face as he clutched the various lilacs, geraniums, and hydrangeas against his chest. Running from the shop's door, he caught up with me as I shuffled along the side road's railing, my blunt nails tapping against the dirty metal. He handed me one of each flower with his usual happy expression.

I didn't know where we were going, but kept silent, despite the desire to ask. Sometimes, there was no point in asking the blond a question because he wouldn't answer. I've noticed lately that his refusal to respond had become more common.

As we walked through the country, away from the bustling ocean city, he hummed a small tune. To me, it sounded like a nursery rhyme that a mother would sing to their child, and I tried to tune it out, having never been too fond of my own mother. She was the one who had kicked me out my home and was the reason why I was constantly traveling from city to city.

"Only a little bit of time left..." Naruto mumbled as he fooled around with the flower petals. "Before my last dream comes," he smiled when we approached a small cemetery beside an abandoned church building. He hurried past me and looked around, eyes becoming bright as he spotted an old headstone in the corner of the fairly small grave site.

Bending down, he placed the flowers in front of it, using his fingers to wipe away the dust over the name.

Uzumaki Kushina.

I stared down at the woman's name, then tossed a look at my friend. Despite being at his mother's grave, he looked very happy, his left hand still around the stems of the flowers. He tilted his head to the side, then reached out to take my hand. His fingers were freezing.

"Okasan, this is Sasuke," the blond tugged me forward. "He's my one and only friend, and he helps me buy food! He's really good with magic tricks and I help him perform them in the city all the time, that's how we get the money! We get a lot of change from the elementary students, they really seem to like magic..." he trailed off. "I wish you were here, so you could meet him. He's really nice to me and he promised he would stay with me until my very last dream."

I shifted and rubbed my thumb over the flowers in my hand. The memory of my promise to the boy was always in the back of my mind, where I tried to lock it away. I had thought of it to be stupid, since the blond was probably never going to have a last dream.

When he'd told me about how an angel had visited him when he was young, I had immediately thought his story was nonsense. I didn't believe in angels, God, or heaven. He'd said that the winged creature had told him he was going to die after he had his very last dream and would live and fly in the skies. When I'd asked him how he'd know which dream was the very last, he'd just laughed and answered by saying "I don't know".

"Idiot, don't tell your mother you're going to die," I scoffed.

Naruto looked up at me, blinking his cerulean eyes. He placed his hands on mine, about to take the flowers from my grasp. "But she already knows about it. When I told her those few years ago, she took me to the doctor to see if something was wrong with me," he pointed to his forehead, "up here. But instead of finding a mental illness, guess what they found?"

I let myself stay calm. This was my first time hearing this...

"What?"

"Absolutely nothing!" he laughed and took the flowers from me, placing them with the others. Standing up, he brushed off his pants. "They found nothing, but the following month, I got sick and missed a month of school. Okasan took me back to the doctor and they said that there was nothing wrong with me. But I already knew then, my Okasan already knew... that I was dying."

I crossed my arms. "I don't believe any of it. How can you get sick and die without something being wrong with you?"

Naruto laughed and bowed to his mother's grave. "Whether you believe it or not, you promised to stay with me until the end. You made a promise!" he grinned and I couldn't help but smirk. Even though I didn't believe in what he was saying, I played along.

And I kept playing along...

Until things got bad.

--------------------------

I helped Naruto carry his groceries back to the little shed he called his home. He said that ever since his mom passed away, he'd been living in that tiny place. He had a part-time job at a grocery store, but they fired him when they found out his ID card was a fake and that he was too young to work. So he got money from kind people on the street and by going into the elementary schools every once and a while to work in the lunchroom.

I heard the blond stumble behind me and just assumed he was being a klutz like usual, but when I turned around, he fell forward, his bag of groceries hitting the ground. Catching him quickly, I pulled him against my chest and looked at his pale face and partly open eyes. The cerulean orbs darted around underneath the eyelids as if he were searching for someone or having a bad nightmare.

"Naruto!" I yelled and patted his cheek with my palm, hoping to maybe snap him out of it. It didn't work and I hoisted him over my shoulder, running back to his old home without the fallen bag of food items.

As I reached the aging building, I opened the creaky door and bent down to place him on his old mattress in the corner of the single room. His skin was cold and covered in a thin layer of sweat, his chest moving up and down a bit faster than usual. I dug through a pile of stuff and yanked out an old washcloth, dipping it in the filled bucket he had used earlier to scrub the wooden floor.

I placed the rag on his forehead and sat back, waiting for him to get better.

This had never happened before and for in instant, just a moment, I believed in everything he had told me about dying. I shook my head, mentally yelling at myself for being stupid and thinking about it. There was no way he was going to die.

And I waited for hours until Naruto finally woke up, his eyelids slowly lifting up. His fingers shifted over the mattress and he stared at me for a moment before slowly sitting up, rubbing at his cheeks and eyes. He seemed out of it, but I didn't blame him.

"Are you alright?" I asked.

He nodded and smiled, but the happiness was missing.

"I'm fine!" he chirped. "I just... don't think I've been getting enough sleep lately."

I stood up and opened the old door with intentions of letting fresh air in for him, the lowering sun casting an orange light into the room. Naruto stared out at the sea and I could see longing in his eyes. He carefully stood and brushed himself off, running past me to go to the sea wall that was a few yards away. He almost stumbled, but laughed nonetheless, beckoning me to follow him and watch the sun set with him. His mood seemed to change abruptly, startling me a bit.

Sighing, I went after him and saw him climb onto the sea wall, spreading his arms out wide, just like the day I had met him...

I sat down on it while we both looked out over the ocean and as I watched him smile brightly toward the sky, I felt my stomach twist painfully. Something was wrong and I didn't know exactly what.

Then I found myself standing quickly when tears suddenly began dripping from his bright eyes, running down his cheeks, to his chin. His brows furrowed and he opened his mouth to let out a sob, then a heart-wrenching wail. His hands immediately went to his face and he rubbed at his eyes, begging for the tears to stop.

"Naruto, what's wrong?" I frantically tried to calm him down, but he only cried harder, rushing forward and pressing himself against me, his heat consuming and comforting. He wrapped his arms around my shoulders and buried his face into my shoulder, his thin frame shaking lightly.

"W-w-we met on an e-evening l-like this..." he hiccupped, as if recalling a memory between himself and a dead loved one. "D-do you r-r-remember?"

I nodded and he felt it, his lips trembling into a smile.

"Th-then you remember o-our promise too?" he sounded hopefully, his shoulders still shaking.

I nodded again and that was when I realized...

He'd had his last dream.

------------------------------

A month went by and as much as I tried to tell myself everything he'd told me was a lie, I knew it wasn't. He was becoming weaker, not even able to lift up a crate of milk anymore. His small muscles were still there, but it was just like strength was being drained from him. I had watched this for a few weeks and felt I needed to do something about it, not knowing if it would help or not.

"You need to eat more. Eat until you feel like you're about to burst," I stated firmly to the blond at dinner, chewing on a bit of rice and pork the manager of the local store had given us. "Then you might gain your strength back."

Naruto stared at me, blinking rapidly.

"Stop doing that," I complained. "Now eat the rest of the food until it's gone."

"But what about you--"

"**Eat**," I growled.

The other boy almost squeaked and looked down at his bowl, quickly scooping up the food with his chopsticks and pushing the rice and pork into his mouth.

---------------------

I'd thought that would've helped him, but he only got worse, his body failing him. He couldn't walk anymore, his legs collapsing under him every time he tried to walk. Yet he still smiled as he had been given a wheelchair by the town doctor. His skin was pale and his eyes were dull, but he still laughed and talked with me as if he were completely healthy.

As I pushed him along the sea wall, he looked up at the passing seagulls, smiling. He looked so small while sitting there, but I didn't comment, not wanting to make him think about anything painful. When I asked him if he wanted ice cream from the local parlor, he nodded eagerly and tapped his fingers on the arms of the chair in excitement.

"Where'd you get money for ice cream?" he asked me, curious.

I smiled. "I've been doing pretty decent with my magic show in town. People have been tossing me coins every once and a while. I thank you, though, for basically being a human commercial for me."

Naruto laughed.

"You're very welcome-- Oh! I want strawberry!" he pointed out as they approached the ice cream parlor.

I ordered our icecreams and after receiving them, I handed Naruto his and watched him consume it like a vacuum cleaner, laughing while doing so. I began pushing him back toward his home, but came to a slow halt when the blond dropped his delicious treat onto the cold ground, the pink icecream splattering onto the cement. I expected him to whine and complain, but nothing came. Instead, all I heard was a choked gasp and the creaking of the wheelchair's metal seat.

Running around to Naruto's side, my eyes widened when I saw him clutching at his chest as if in pain, his eyes shut tightly.

"Naruto...?"

"S-Sasuke," when he whispered my name, it was so weak and pathetic that I felt the need to hold him. I bent down and pulled him into my arms, lifting him up and letting his legs swing limply below him. I pressed him as close to me as I could and he whimpered.

I carried him to the beach, feeling as if we needed to go there. He smiled softly in appreciation and his breathing was shallow, sweat forming on his temples. He looked out weakly over the sea and the sparkling of the ocean was reflected in his eyes.

"Thank you for staying with me until the end..."

"This... isn't the end, idiot," I growled. "You're just sick, you'll be fine soon. You're over exerting yourself."

Naruto only laughed softly and hugged me.

"I was so afraid of this, but... I think I'm ok."

"Nothing's going to happen, Na--"

"You made my last summer a lot of fun, Sasuke," he said honestly, cutting me off. "So thank you..." he shifted in my arms and looked at me, tears forming in his eyes. "Do you think you could... put me down? I want to try to walk to the sea."

"You can't--"

"**Please?**" he begged.

Reluctantly, I slowly lowered him to the sandy ground and he kept himself up, his knees buckling beneath him. He stared out over the expanse of water and began walking forward, sweat dripping down his face, along with his tears. His lips were trembling as he got closer to the ocean and he smiled, letting a breathy laugh slip between his lips and flutter into the air. He fell forward as the tips of his toes were brushed against by a cold wave.

I rushed forward and fell to my knees, catching him just in time, his body limp in my arms. His back arched gracefully over my bent arm and his head fell back, his tears running into his hair. His lips were parted, his face so peaceful.

Overhead, I thought I heard the sound of fluttering wings and looked up into the sky.

---------------------------

After that summer, I stayed in the little ocean-side town. I lived in a small house near the beach and got a job at one of the local markets, still doing the magic shows for the kids every once and a while in remembrance of Naruto. The blond had always liked my tricks...

Not one day goes by where I don't question the cause of his death. I'll get angry and say that the doctors were just idiots and didn't have any idea what they were doing, but then I'll calm down and think that maybe what happened wasn't normal, that it was supernatural, that Naruto did really die because of his last dream...

Because of that angel visiting him.

And when I think of that, I'll smile and go out to walk on the shore, to look up at the clouds during the evening. When I do that, I like to think that Naruto's up there with his mother, happy and flying through the sky with that dopey smile on his face.

I'm sad that I lost him and wasn't able to gain any closure... but I know that no matter what, I'll always remember him and the summer we spent together before he died.

It was, and will always be, the happiest memory I'll ever have...

**I hope you liked this, as shitty as I thought it was XD Reviews are appreciated! Arigato!**


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